Maia

Maia's feelings towards the High Counselor remained strangely ambivalent, fear and fascination succeeding each other like sunlight and cloud-shadow on a hillside. She came to perceive that for him, as Occula had said, the humiliation of others was an important ingredient of sexual pleasure. One evening, when Maia and Occula were with him in the bath, Terebinthia entered to tell him that a shepherd lad from Urtah, secretly in his pay, had come twenty miles through the rain to report to him, and was waiting wet through in the courtyard. The High Counselor, having replied that the boy deserved to be treated hospitably, thereupon had him brought in, stripped of his wet clothes and rubbed down; after which he made him sit beside the bath while he himself continued what he had been doing with the girls. At length, telling Maia to re-

main, naked as she was, and serve the youngster with food and drink, he listened to his report and questioned him, while at the same time plainly enjoying his shamefaced and futile attempts to conceal his natural reaction to the sight of the pretty slave-girl.

On another occasion, while talking to a young soldier who had come on some errand from Durakkon, Sencho asked him whether he thought Dyphna was beautiful: and upon the youth naturally replying yes, told him that he might do whatever he pleased with her, provided he did not deprive him of his very natural desire to watch. And despite his reluctance the young man, before being permitted to leave, was compelled to do as the High Counselor required.

An habitual amusement with him was to inflict pain under the pretense of play or of a caress, and the girls, while waiting upon him, were often squeezed, slapped, or tormented in some more prurient manner, such as tweaking their nipples or plucking the hair at their groins.

And yet, even in the act of performing some disgusting duty, such as helping the High Counselor to vomit up his gorge, Maia found herself often overcome by that spontaneous sense of excitement and admiration not uncommon in young people towards someone who has absolute power over them. She had no say at all in what took place between them. Sencho might discuss certain matters with his cooks, but never with his girls; for while what he wanted from the former varied and often required careful thought on their part, what he wanted from the latter did not. In his household only one person's convenience was ever considered; and since Maia had no rights and he could order her to do anything he wanted, she simply accepted the situation, which by the standards of a Tonildan peasant-girl was far from intolerable. Maia, indeed (in contrast to Occula), was not unlike a beautiful hawk or hound. She did not go in for reflection. Sencho was her master and after all her abundant, youthful energy had to have some outlet. To wait on him and to gratify him was easy work, while even to minister to him while he excreted great quantities of ordure was not all that different from mucking out the cows-in fact, more cleanly and much less arduous, for every part of the High Counselor's household was well-copducted and -equipped, Terebinthia being perhaps the

most expert saiyett in the empire in accommodating the needs of a libertine.

Sencho did exactly as he felt inclined from morning till night, gratifying each appetite and impulse in the moment that he felt it and without the slightest constraint or shame either in the act or after. From this self-indulgence he clearly derived that peculiar satisfaction often felt by those who have formerly been, but are now no longer, poor and continually straining every energy to their own advancement. Indolence in itself, for example, plainly constituted one of his greatest sources of enjoyment. When his greed and lust had for a time been satisfied, he would remain lying upon the couch or in the bath, not sleeping but torpid, like some huge insect, doing nothing whatever, yet plainly with enjoyment. During all the months that she spent in his household, Maia never knew whether or not he could read and write; for though it seemed incredible that he could not, she never once saw him do so, it being his invariable practice to require Terebinthia to undertake such irksome matters on his behalf.